Candomblé

Brazil's orixá religion, preserving African gods through ecstatic communal worship.

c. early 1800s CE → · Brazil · African & Diaspora

Candomblé took shape among enslaved Africans in Brazil, chiefly of Yoruba, Fon, and Bantu origin, honoring the orixás in temple communities (terreiros) led by priests and priestesses. Each devotee is linked to a guardian orixá, and worship culminates in drumming and dance in which the deities are embodied. Once persecuted, it is now a vital thread of Brazilian religious and cultural life.

Key figures

• The orixás
• Mãe/Pai de santo (priesthood)

Texts

• Oral liturgy

Beliefs

• Devotion to the orixás
• Each person tied to a guardian deity
• Harmony of the community and spirits

Rituals

• Drumming and possession dance
• Initiation in the terreiro
• Offerings and feast days

Grew from

• Yoruba Religion (Ifá)
• Roman Catholicism

Connections in the atlas

• Mãe Menininha do Gantois
• Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove
• Saci
• The Ifá corpus (Odù)
• Ecstatic trance and spirit possession (ritual)
• The Middle Passage
• The Bantu-speaking peoples
• Ile-Ife
• The Yoruba and the Atlantic diaspora